At a wedding reception a couple of months ago I wound up in a conversation about the importance of adventure and module cover art – it simply cannot be understated! Seeing those thin, plastic-wrapped books in toy stores or on revolving racks at such dearly-departed hobby shops as Eric Fuch’s and Citadel Games was a huge part of what drew me into the game.

I’ve been collecting jpgs on my desktop for awhile (though I’d really love to collect the books themselves) and have put together a survey of the B-series (published between 1979 and 1989). While it’s unnecessary to define ‘Basic’ vs ‘Advanced’ D&D right now, just note that when playing Dungeons and Dragons, ‘Advanced’ is really the way to go… though these Basic modules do have pretty sweet covers.

Truth be told, this was Brittany’s find – I was adamantly against taking it home (just as adamant as I was when Brittany picked up $7 off the sidewalk a few months ago); but I’ll admit (now that it’s sat in the car for over a year), it’s pretty awesome. The teacher’s notes are a bit hard to read in the scan:

Great start – I’d like to reread it you are missing some words and need to change others (see underlined). If you rewrite it you’ll get extra credit

As for the story itself, here’s Folusho Adeyemo’s original text with corrections in brackets:

Hi, hoots the name and a seed is my game. I’m here to(y) tell you one of the greatest story in the world. The story of the plant hunters watcher. We starts of with a group of kids playing with some squeals, [what is this?] “A[h] men” the kid said to his friends, looking at the squeal with a smile on his face and his mind screaming food! “let eat”

The other [boys] smile and picked up there [their] knee and just about they killed the squeal they saw it planting a seed in the earth and they cooked and eat[ate – past tense] the squeal. Even dough the boy was fall he went back to that spot ever day. Some said he was a fool but fool where the great, some said [he] was looking for a voice of an angel and he was, sew if each day and because that he was telt [does not make sense] to find food on his own and he did with a peach tree all to him self.”

While it’s no big secret that the vast majority of illustrations in the Compendium aren’t totally mind-blowing (compare the Displacer Beast on the binder cover above to the rather anemic image on the profile page, after the jump), the full color images printed on the weirdly textured heavy weight matte paper sectional dividers are among some of the best works of art from the 2nd Edition epoch.

This Robin Hood costume combined a hat, cape and tunic my grandmother made with my aunt Beth’s belt, green jeans and boots… I’d nearly forgotten about the fish tank in the dining room; and the directors chairs at the table…

I’ve been to a couple of shows where everyone knows the words to every song, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily sing along the entire time. R Kelly’s fans are different. Throughout the two-hour performance, which was really just about a half dozen medleys covering bits of well over 3o songs, the audience bellowed the chorus and, in some cases, verses of almost every song, even the Sam Cooke number he covered near the end.

There were some weird spots, like the home video he played (within the home video of a monologue he recorded) of Michael Jackson and auteur Brett Rattner dancing to the remix of Ignition and the part where he spoke openly about how this was the first tour he’d been on since his court case…

No Trapped in the Closet, which we kind of anticipated he’d avoid anyway (though Sex in the Kitchen briefly entered the mix), just tons and tons of sincere, if slightly raunchy, songs about having sex, usually in hotel rooms.

Is a blog we created to share all of the old magazines, book covers, family photos, film stills, clothes and much, much more that have, without an outlet, been accruing and congesting our living spaces and hard drives for years. Much like the surrealist exercise the name derives from, each contributor adds an image to the blog whenever the urge strikes, creating an ongoing visual dialogue that we hope you enjoy.

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